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Hi All,
Cross posting this from mud as I'm not getting much traffic over there and I know some folks don't visit there much (though if I wanted to make my cruiser look like a JK I'd be golden ). I've read through a number of the spindle & bearing threads on mud, but still a bit confused.

1. Bought the cruiser, found out shortly after the front wheel bearings were loose.
2. Tightened the adjusting nuts up, and was still getting noise when driving, which I didn't like too much.
3. Tore into the front axle and found the the races ruined, bearings low on grease and wear on the spindle.
4. Did a full front axle maintenance with new bearings and races, etc.
5. Took the following measurements of the spindle. All measurements were for the outer bearing. Inner | and - is the interior up/down and left/right measurement where the bearing was not riding. Outer is where the bearing was spinning and wearing the spindle.

1. During reassembly, went through the procedure in the FSM. However, to get above the min 6.4lbf fishscale on the hub, I had to torque the inner bearing well above the 4lbf spec'd. Probably at least up to 40lbf+ area to get correct fishscale reading.
2. A few weeks ago did a full break job, requiring the hubs to get pulled . Passenger side looked fine, but it appeared as if the DS bearing was spinning on the spindle (the thrust/claw washer had wear marks in the inner side).

So I am trying to figure out the relationship between bearings spinning on the spindle, preload on the adjusting nut, and spindle wear.

1. Does too much preload on the bearing/adjusting nut have the potential to cause it to spin on the spindle? I would think not....but didn't know if there was a "too high/too low causes spinning on spindle" From the second thread above I would think that such little increase in rolling resistance wouldn't cause the bearing to spin on the spindle instead of the race.
2. Does too much wear on the spindle, even when adjusted to the proper preload case the bearing to spin on the spindle? And by extension when a spindle is worn it takes too much torque on the adjusting nut to get proper preload?
3. Or is it a potential combination that does it? I am trying to figure out if I just had too much preload on the bearings causing them to spin (in which case I can decrease preload, also decreasing the fish-scale measurement. Sounds like this may be ok if there is no play in the hub? ) Or if maybe I need to order up a new spindle as decreasing preload would just increase the spin-on-spindle problem.

Those look exactly like the wheel bearings did on my 1980 FJ40 and your spindle wear sounds the same. I ended up replacing the spindle with a better (used) one, because it's supposed to be tapered where it engages the inner race, and when the inner race has worn down the spindle, there's no way to accurately preload the bearing. Essentially, the inner race is bearing (verb) on a worn 'point' on the spindle, rather than spreading the load and friction (that prevents the race from spinning) across a wider/bigger area.

If your spindle is thoroughly roached out, I see no way you will ever get the bearing adjusted correctly. What's odd is that your spindle wear doesn't sound all that excessive, based on the measurements you provided.

I just rebuilt the Dana 60 axle in the front of our cruiser. Different axle but it goes together exactly the same way the Toyota axle does. The bearings on both sides were bone dry and had locked up the bearings letting them spin on the spindles thus wearing them pretty badly. I replaced both spindles because the inner bearing race needs to fit snug on the spindle to prevent the inner race from spinning.

On the Dana 60, after installing new bearings and races, you use a torque wrench and tighten the inner bearing adjustment nut to 50 ft lbs, spin the hub several times, then back the nut off 1/8 to 1/4 turn until the preload is about 6-7 on the fish scale.

Unless you crush the needle bearings into the race by massive over torquing, I can't imagine that causing the inner race to spin on the spindle as long as you back it off to the appropriate pre-load.

Did you buy OEM bearings or after market? I've seen some after market bearings where the tolerances are looser where they fit to the spindles. Or your original spindles may just be worn enough that you need to replace them.

because it's supposed to be tapered where it engages the inner race, and when the inner race has worn down the spindle, there's no way to accurately preload the bearing. Essentially, the inner race is bearing (verb) on a worn 'point' on the spindle, rather than spreading the load and friction (that prevents the race from spinning) across a wider/bigger area.

Interesting! I was under the impression that the only piece in the system that was tapered was the bearing/race. I thought that the inside of the bearing was essentially flat with no angle, as was the spindle. Otherwise the bearing could "bottom out" on the spindle before making proper contact with the race?

Definitely don't doubt that a worn spindle would cause this excessive spinning. I'm trying to reason out if I were to back off on the preload, to maybe like 20 ft/lbs, and as long as there is no wobble, if that may stop the bearing spinning on the spindle. But it could also be too worn that it won't matter....

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveH

Can you post a photo of the spindle where the wear occurred?
Steve

I don't have a great pic, one attached has grease so can't really tell much. I will probably end up having to go back in, so can take a pic then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Air Randy

I just rebuilt the Dana 60 axle in the front of our cruiser. Different axle but it goes together exactly the same way the Toyota axle does. The bearings on both sides were bone dry and had locked up the bearings letting them spin on the spindles thus wearing them pretty badly. I replaced both spindles because the inner bearing race needs to fit snug on the spindle to prevent the inner race from spinning.

Yep, my bearings fit "snug-ish" :-D I am pretty new at this so not sure how exact the tolerances should be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Air Randy

On the Dana 60, after installing new bearings and races, you use a torque wrench and tighten the inner bearing adjustment nut to 50 ft lbs, spin the hub several times, then back the nut off 1/8 to 1/4 turn until the preload is about 6-7 on the fish scale.

Interesting, I may try this method. When I adjusted, followed the FSM of tightening, loosening all the way, and then slowing re-torquing until i got about 6-8 on the scale. But that torque on the bearing ended up being something like 40+ ft/lbs...probably a bit too high.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Air Randy

Unless you crush the needle bearings into the race by massive over torquing, I can't imagine that causing the inner race to spin on the spindle as long as you back it off to the appropriate pre-load.

Do you think that excessive force on the needle bearings, combined with a loose fitting spindle would leave less friction between the spindle and inner bearing surface than on the bearing-to-race surface, especially with the bearings packed with grease? And subsequently allowing the bearing to spin in the wrong spot?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Air Randy

Did you buy OEM bearings or after market?

I got them at Autozone, but they are timken's, which IIRC was "factory" in the later model years of the 80.

I'll probably end up getting paranoid and end up feeding dan's dogs, but may try and decrease the preload first. More suggestions welcome!

1. During reassembly, went through the procedure in the FSM. However, to get above the min 6.4lbf fishscale on the hub, I had to torque the inner bearing well above the 4lbf spec'd. Probably at least up to 40lbf+ area to get correct fishscale reading.
2. A few weeks ago did a full break job, requiring the hubs to get pulled . Passenger side looked fine, but it appeared as if the DS bearing was spinning on the spindle (the thrust/claw washer had wear marks in the inner side).

I saw your post on MUD but I generally try to limit my comments that put my lack of mechanical skill in the limelight to this forum

Anyway...My thought is, and maybe the smarter folks will correct me, that if you are getting scoring on the claw washer from the bearing the cause of that is a loose bearing. I did the full front end service last October when I swapped to 4.88s. This included all new bearings, races, etc. I mucked with the stupid preload for a long time until I got it perfect, or so I thought.

About a month ago I started hearing noises...The noise was normally heard on the highway when letting off the gas and was what I imagined would be made by bearings that were "loose" and cavitating. I lifted the front end and did the 6/12 o'clock tire wiggle test and sure enough I had movement. Not a lot but then again I have no idea how much if any is ok.

So, I pulled the front end apart and on both sides I could see where the outer bearing had scored the claw washer a little bit . The other thing I noticed is on the PS I had moly grease invading the outer bearing and it had all but washed away the red Mobil 1 wheel bearing grease . So I repacked the outer bearings and installed new claw washers and mucked with the stupid preload again. Didn't think about it at the time but this go around I didn't pull the calipers and my preload was much higher but I went with it.

I tried Three Wheel Ben's trick of tightening the inner nut to just "wrist tight" (i.e. holding the ratchet right at the hub socket and ratchet meet point, tighten the inner nut as tight as you can get it using just your wrist). Then I put on the lock washer and tightened the outer nut FSM tight. Well, my preload as measured with a scale was in the 20s - I finally got it down a bit and decided at 3am to just go with it. Before my hubs would stay cool and not heat up at all but that was with loose bearings I'm guessing. Now they get hot to the touch but not so hot that you can't touch them so I'm hoping I'll be alright and right in the sweet spot if everything loosens up a bit down the road.

The whole preload thing still confounds me because I can get it perfect on the inner nut but the moment I torque the outer nut to the FSM spec the preload shoots way up off the chart. Some of the guys on MUD suggest ignoring the FSM all together, including measuring the preload with a fish scale, and to just torque the inner nut to 20 lb/ft and the outer to whatever (FSM tight?) and call it good.

What I can tell you is that I'm no longer hearing what I suspected was the loose bearing noise and I'm hoping that I'm not too tight that my bearings will fail early.

Some day I need to sit down with Ben and have him show me his technique again but it really shouldn't be this hard! I bet I spent an hour taking everything apart and repacking the bearings and 2 hours mucking with the stupid preload

I saw your post on MUD but I generally try to limit my comments that put my lack of mechanical skill in the limelight to this forum

Right there with ya! I generally include lots of pictures and measurements to disguise my lack of wrenching ability whenever I post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by corsair23

So, I pulled the front end apart and on both sides I could see where the outer bearing had scored the claw washer a little bit . The other thing I noticed is on the PS I had moly grease invading the outer bearing and it had all but washed away the red Mobil 1 wheel bearing grease . So I repacked the outer bearings and installed new claw washers and mucked with the stupid preload again. Didn't think about it at the time but this go around I didn't pull the calipers and my preload was much higher but I went with it.

Same for me. A bit of cross contamination between the greases on the side that was spinning.

Quote:

Originally Posted by corsair23

I tried Three Wheel Ben's trick of tightening the inner nut to just "wrist tight" (i.e. holding the ratchet right at the hub socket and ratchet meet point, tighten the inner nut as tight as you can get it using just your wrist). Then I put on the lock washer and tightened the outer nut FSM tight. Well, my preload as measured with a scale was in the 20s - I finally got it down a bit and decided at 3am to just go with it. Before my hubs would stay cool and not heat up at all but that was with loose bearings I'm guessing. Now they get hot to the touch but not so hot that you can't touch them so I'm hoping I'll be alright and right in the sweet spot if everything loosens up a bit down the road.

The whole preload thing still confounds me because I can get it perfect on the inner nut but the moment I torque the outer nut to the FSM spec the preload shoots way up off the chart. Some of the guys on MUD suggest ignoring the FSM all together, including measuring the preload with a fish scale, and to just torque the inner nut to 20 lb/ft and the outer to whatever (FSM tight?) and call it good.

What I can tell you is that I'm no longer hearing what I suspected was the loose bearing noise and I'm hoping that I'm not too tight that my bearings will fail early.

This is exactly what I am worried about. So what I did this weekend was take the drivers side apart. I pulled things down to the claw washer, and flipped it over (onto the fresh, unscored side). Then I tightened to 40, loosened, went to handtight or about 5ft/lbs, and then another 1/6th of a turn or so. I used the torque wrench and it didn't click at the lowest setting of 25...so somewhere below that. Now both hubs seem to heat up about the same after a 15 min drive, hot to touch but no so hot you can't leave your hand on there.

This is quite a bit different from how I did it before w/ scale. Doing that I ended up with probably 40-50 ft/lbs of preload...and worried about too much causing bearing failure.

So...my plan is to open things back up in another 500 miles or so, and see if the other side of the washer is getting scored as well. If so, I think it may be time for new spindles. (Though interesting thing, when I had it opened up, with no claw washer on there, I pushed on the inner race of the bearing with my hand and turned the hub with the other. No spinning of the inner race with just hand pressure holding in on there. Maybe too much preload was causing it to spin since more force there due to worn spindle.)

This is quite a bit different from how I did it before w/ scale. Doing that I ended up with probably 40-50 ft/lbs of preload...and worried about too much causing bearing failure.

Corey, am I reading correctly that it is now at 40-50 ft/lbs of preload? If this is the case, I would not wait 500 miles before checking. When I did my disk brake conversion up front I was having trouble getting the pre-load correct and recall that at 20 ft lbs. my hubs were too hot to touch after a very short drive. In my situation, both sides of my claw washers were grooved; once I replaced them with new I had no trouble getting the specified pre-load.

Corey, am I reading correctly that it is now at 40-50 ft/lbs of preload? If this is the case, I would not wait 500 miles before checking. When I did my disk brake conversion up front I was having trouble getting the pre-load correct and recall that at 20 ft lbs. my hubs were too hot to touch after a very short drive. In my situation, both sides of my claw washers were grooved; once I replaced them with new I had no trouble getting the specified pre-load.

Partly correct The DS that was spinning I redid this weekend, and is probably at 15-25ft/lbs now. The PS is still probably at 40ft/lbs. (I am indeed worried that it would heat up too much at highway speeds. Around town at 45mph it seemed to stay warm but not hot. I may tear into that side this upcoming weekend....and see if loosening the preload on the PS side makes it start to spin on the race/spindle.